Spring has come to London, mad as March hares. This one, an albino, is over a hundred years old and fell asleep for ever somewhere on Dartmoor in the nineteenth century. But after a fashion, he lives on here with us in a house in a city in a way never dreamed of back then. He has company - blue birds, an owl, a squirrel, a parrot, a blackbird (who flew into the window one day), a whole family of grebes, a hawk and a miscellany of others. Some find them spooky but for me they are magical - creatures from dreams, frozen in flight or caught for ever in the light.

Speaking of such things reminds me that my old friend, that peculiar animal Cibelle Blackbird has a new single "Man from Mars" coming out followed by an album "Las Venus resort palace Hotel" in May. I have had heard them both and I can confirm they are marvellous. The album is set in a club at 'the end of the world' which sounds a little familiar - maybe there is something apocalyptic in the air of Clerkenwell and Dalston.

Cibelle is one of the stars of the "Dreams That Money Can Buy" live score by The Real Tuesday Weld which I am looking forward to seeing performed again later this year. Here she is singing, the final sequence: A kiss like a knife:

I was very sorry to hear of the death of Mark from Sparklehorse. A gentle giant and a modest man. In London a few years back, he seemed a fish out of water - a rural creature blinking awkwardly in the light. I loved the little world he managed to create from words and pictures and funny sounds.

Some of his songs with their references to frogs and owls and myrtle felt like a magical pagan americana.

Here is a Song for Mark - originally meant for someone else - but, under the circumstances, this time for him.